He sniffed suspiciously, and rearranged his cravat in the mirror upon the wall.
“Well,” he remarked in Italian to the delegato who stood at his side. “This is a matter in which I really cannot intervene. The prisoner has to prove his innocence. How can I help him?”
“By doing your duty as Consul,” I chimed in. “By having an interview with the Questore and obtaining justice for me.”
“I know my duty, sir,” he snapped. “And it is not to investigate the case of every unknown tourist who gets into difficulty. If you have money, you can engage some lawyer for your defence—and if you haven’t, well I’m sorry for you.”
“Yours is a rather poor consolation, Mr Johnson,” I remarked in anger. “Am I to understand then that you refuse to help me—that you will not see the Questore on my behalf?”
“I’ve told you plainly, I am unable to interfere.”
“Then I shall complain to the Foreign Office regarding the inutility of their Consul in Milan and his refusal to assist British subjects in distress,” I said.
“Make whatever complaint you like. I have no time to discuss the matter further.” And he turned rudely upon his heel and left me, while the police drew their own conclusions from his attitude.
“Very well, my dear sir,” I called after him down the hospital ward, “when Sir Charles Renton asks for your explanation of your conduct to-day, you will perhaps regret that you were not a little more civil.”
My words fell upon him, causing him to turn back. Mention of the name of the head of his particular department of the Foreign Office stirred the thought within him that he might, after all, be acting contrary to his own interests. He was a toady and place-seeker of the first water.